---
title: "Flag of Vatican City: colours and meaning"
description: "What every colour and symbol on the Vatican City flag stands for, its official 1:1 ratio, and the year the current design was adopted."
url: https://atoneplace.net/flag/vatican-city/
site: "At One Place"
---

# The flag of Vatican City

**The flag of Vatican City: A square flag divided vertically, gold at the hoist and white at the fly, with the crossed keys of St Peter and the papal tiara on the white half.**

Ratio 1:1 · current design adopted 1929

*[Flag drawn on the page: Vatican City]*

One of two square national flags, adopted with the Lateran Treaty of 1929 that created the Vatican City State. The colours come from the cockade of the papal army after 1808, when gold and white replaced the earlier yellow and red. The keys are always shown crossed with the gold one pointing up to the viewer's right; getting them the wrong way round reverses the theology. The tiara stayed on the flag even after Paul VI set his own aside in 1964, so the flag depicts an object that is now a museum piece.

## Flags it gets confused with

*[Flag drawn on the page: Vatican City, Switzerland]*

*Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.*

| Flag | How to tell them apart |
| --- | --- |
| Switzerland | The other square flag, but plain red with a white cross and no emblem. |

## What the colours mean

*Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.*

- **Gold** (#FFE000) — The golden key of spiritual authority
- **White** (#FFFFFF) — The silver key of temporal authority

## The symbols on it

| What | What it stands for |
| --- | --- |
| Gold key | Spiritual power — the power to bind and loose in heaven |
| Silver key | Temporal power on earth |
| Papal tiara | The three-tiered crown of the pope, retained on the flag though no pope has worn one since 1963 |

- **Ratio:** 1:1
- **Current design adopted:** 1929
- **Colours:** gold, white

## Common questions

### What does the flag of Vatican City look like?

A square flag divided vertically, gold at the hoist and white at the fly, with the crossed keys of St Peter and the papal tiara on the white half.

### What do the colours of the Vatican City flag mean?

Gold: the golden key of spiritual authority. White: the silver key of temporal authority.

### How do you tell the Vatican City flag from the Switzerland one?

The other square flag, but plain red with a white cross and no emblem.

### When was the Vatican City flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1929, and its official ratio is 1:1.

## Related pages

- [Vatican City](https://atoneplace.net/country/vatican-city/)
- [The flag of Switzerland](https://atoneplace.net/flag/switzerland/)
- [Every flag with gold in it](https://atoneplace.net/flag/colour/gold/)
- [The flag of Germany](https://atoneplace.net/flag/germany/)
- [The flag of Argentina](https://atoneplace.net/flag/argentina/)
- [The flag of South Africa](https://atoneplace.net/flag/south-africa/)
- [The flag of Philippines](https://atoneplace.net/flag/philippines/)
- [The flag of Chad](https://atoneplace.net/flag/chad/)
- [The flag of Jamaica](https://atoneplace.net/flag/jamaica/)
- [The flag of Ghana](https://atoneplace.net/flag/ghana/)
- [The flag of Sri Lanka](https://atoneplace.net/flag/sri-lanka/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]